He shouldn't have been there
by TamaraJagellovsk
Summary: Oneshot, non canon. Whump. Jack gets severely injured on a mission he should never have been part of. Female OC again.


**This one has been on my hard disc for some time and I figured since I'm having big motivation problems with CoC I'll publish this instead. As usual, female OC. Jack's a General and Janet is alive – so obviously non canon. Not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine.**

She had seen more than one injured soldier over the course of her career – some she had barely known as well as some that had been close to her, comrades, friends. Scarcely ever had those images kept her from sleeping, but this was different. This was a picture too horrifying to overcome easily. The deadly pale face, covered over and over in blood. It had been running from the man's eyes and nose, his mouth and his ears. She jerked from the nightmare, sweat on her face and her body, her heart racing. She had been aware of the fact that she was dreaming, but it didn't ease the horror. Not one bit. Never. She tried to collect her breath, got up and out of the clamp t-shirt she had been wearing and into the shower. Afterward she had planned to return to bed, but she was wide awake now and not likely to fall asleep soon. She sighed. That nightmare's picture came to her mind again, and she forced it to change. To strip it of all the blood, to make the General look asleep instead of half dead. A thought occurred her. She shook it off, but it came back. Why not?

Five minutes later she found herself dressed in a fresh shirt and loose trousers in front of the infirmary. She took a deep breath and plunged into the door. The nurse on duty, a young sergeant, looked up, a little surprised. Once she recognized the older officer, she straightened and asked a polite: "Ma'am?"

Colonel Maria Bach intended to do her best superior officer, but given the time – way after midnight – and the circumstances she couldn't quite muster it. Instead she just went for honesty:

"I can't seem to sleep, so I thought I might pay the General a visit. Do you think Dr. Fraiser would object? I sure don't want to do any damage to him – or cause you trouble."

Sergeant Miller smiled at the other woman. "Doc didn't say he wasn't to have visitors. And me personally, I doubt that it does him any harm." She did not say that it didn't do any good either, probably. She kept that thought to herself. No one, including Dr. Fraiser, knew if the General took in any of the things that went on around him. He had been unchanged for almost two weeks now.

Colonel Bach nodded and entered the room. She stiffened in order to shield herself from the emotion she knew she would experience at his sight. It hit her anyway. He looked as if he was dead. Flat on his back, no movement except from the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath the sheets caused by the machine that kept him breathing. She knew he wouldn't take a single breath on his own behalf. She knew it better than anyone else. She had tried. It had been in vein.

Tears came to her eyes. She took a step closer to the bed and stood there, the minutes passing by. She couldn't quite make herself sit down. She just looked down on the man that had been – 'still was!' she screamed at herself – her CO. The tears kept running freely down her cheeks now, but she didn't make one single sound. She had to sit at last. Carefully lifting up a chair and setting it down next to his bed, she got seated. He was pale, and she thought she could see pain around his closed eyes. Probably that wasn't possible, just her imagination. But she was in pain anyway, in sympathy for this man that she had the profoundest respect for. If only she could do something.

Her thoughts wandered. Back to that terrible day, that mission terribly gone wrong. He shouldn't have been there. Washington had denied him permission originally, but he had talked them into it somehow. Jack O'Neill could be very persuasive at times. She smiled. At any given time actually. What was it about this man that made people want to follow him? He had reached a position where he could easily order most people into anything he wanted them to do, but the fact was, most of the time he didn't have to. They did it willingly, acknowledging his experience, his instincts or simply his charisma. What if he never opened his eyes? Never drew breath? Left them? The base wasn't what it was supposed to be without him...'without him walking its hallways. Stop thinking as if he was dead!' she barked at herself.

He had found reasons why the leader of the SGC had to be part of that mission in person. She didn't know those reasons, but she knew the real reason.

He'd gone nuts stuck inside that mountain for weeks without end. Stuck behind a desk flooded with paperwork that seemed to appear from nowhere no matter how quickly he dealt with it. He had tried really hard. Tried to hold back, to act from behind the scenes, to lend his expertise to his outgoing and returning teams and otherwise to stand back. But it had become too hard. He had told her that the night before they left. She had been able to see – for a split second – what he was going through. He had to be out there. Just for once. He'd said only that way would he feel alive. Complete. She had been surprised by the determination in his words and eyes. And this was the price to pay now. He was further away from being alive and complete than ever before. She felt drawn to him, for a moment contemplating if she might touch him. She shook it off. Unconscious or not, he was her CO. She took a deep breath and straightened.

Back in her quarters she quickly undressed and went back to bed. She felt somewhat relieved, and for some reason she was sure the nightmare wouldn't come back. Not this night.

It became a daily – or rather nightly – routine. Maria would go to bed, fall asleep, jerk out of a nightmare – sometimes she didn't even try to go to sleep in the first place - and stroll towards the infirmary. The medical staff already were expecting her.

One of those nights she noticed little drops of sweat on the general's forehead. She thought about calling the nurse for a moment, but she was busy with another patient, a captain that had come back from a mission that day with a badly bruised leg that gave him quite some pain and kept him from sleeping. Maria got up and took a piece of cloth, dipped it into water and carefully swept the sweat away. She wanted to believe that it might bring him some comfort. With a half smile she realized that finally she had done it. Touched him. It did bring _her_ some comfort at least.

The nurse had come and gave her a questioning look. Maria explained about the sweat. The nurse frowned and read into the monitors and read outs. Then she took to the phone. Maria wanted to ask, but when the nurse spoke into the phone, she got her answers.

"Sorry to wake you, Doctor, but I'm afraid I need you here with the general. It seems he's developing a fever."

She put the phone down and turned to Maria. "Colonel, I think it's best you left now, Ma'am."

Colonel Bach didn't feel like leaving, but she knew she would only be in the way once Dr. Fraiser got there. So she nodded and turned on her heels. In the door she held her step, considering staying anyway, but decided differently. Now she definitely wouldn't sleep.

She addressed the infirmary first thing in the morning. Dr. Fraiser was busy around the captain's leg, but noticed Maria at once. "With you in a minute, Colonel", she said, her face giving nothing away.

When she approached, Maria felt her stomach turn. The doc closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I take it you were with him tonight?" Maria merely nodded. "As you are every night, my staff tells me" she added with a small smile. Maria blushed a tiny bit. The doctor turned serious immediately. "I'm worried. He hasn't changed all that time, and now he gets a fever. That doesn't make any sense."

"Is there anything we can do?"

Dr. Fraiser shook her head. "I'm treating him against the fever, but there's a fifty-fifty chance that it'll make things worse." She looked worn and tired, frustrated not to be able to help. "You know, sometimes I just want to shake him and yell at him to look at me", she whispered. Her shoulders sank. Then she turned to the duties at hand.

Three days later the general hat stabilized. Maria paid her nightly visit, sat with him, talking to him in that quiet voice that she had developed in order not to disturb him or anyone else present in the infirmary. She had grown accustomed to reporting to him the day's latest news. After all, he was her CO, for crying out loud! Things ran smoothly in a routine that had been established without him. Peterson had finally settled into the big chair, not really comfortable yet, but improving. The world moved on. Jack O'Neill lay as dead. Already there had been talks of transferring him, but Dr. Fraiser refused to let that happen. When – not if – he'd wake, she said, she wanted to make dead sure she was present.

The day it happened Anna was off world. She came back leading her team through the 'gate, all of them exhausted and covered in dust. Everybody longed for a shower before heading to their med checks. When Maria entered the infirmary, Dr. Fraiser was widely grinning, a sight most unusual with her. "You won't believe it", she beamed at the Colonel. Maria understood immediately.

"When?"

"Only just an hour ago. He's asleep now, safe and sound. We will not let him slip away on us again."

Maria was already off towards his room when Dr. Fraiser stopped her by softly touching her arm.

"He asked for you."

Maria was stunned. Other than that horrible mission the general had been injured on they hadn't been working together much. They were far from being close. The questions shone in her eyes as she looked at the doc.

"Maybe he's been taking in far more than we thought", the doc guessed with a smile.

"May I...?"

"Of course. But do not wake him please. He desperately needs these hours of good sleep."

Maria entered the now so familiar room virtually on tip toes. What a change. Jack O'Neill was breathing on his own, his face had regained the slightest color, and though he still looked weary, he now was definitely asleep. Safe. It took a few minutes before Maria realized she was actually crying. Silent tears of relief ran down her face, and beneath those tears she was smiling. She was sure she hadn't made a sound, but something must have stirred the general. His lids moved, and there it was. A look from deep brown eyes, full of pain and agony and weakness, but accompanied by the smallest of smiles. She couldn't hold his gaze, and she was ashamed of the tears he might have seen.

He swallowed, and his lips parted. "Hey." Almost inaudible. Maria burst into tears again.

"Hey", she replied, stripped of all formality she should have shown to a superior officer. She didn't give a damn. He could charge her for it if he wanted to. She was just downright thankful to have him back.

He tried to speak again, merely managing a single syllable.

"Thanks."

Jack recovered slowly but steadily, staying awake for longer each time. It was Maria who was presented with the obvious question.

"What happened?"

"What do you remember?"

"Last thing I know we were fuzzing around on the ramp about who'd go first, and I pulled my rank on you to force you into stepping back. I entered the wormhole and got out on the other side, and that's it. Boom. Went black."

Maria tried to keep her voice calm and her face professionally blank. It was hard as she replayed those pictures in her mind. The ones she kept seeing in her sleep. But of course he deserved to know. She took a deep breath and looked anywhere else but at him.

"I came through right after you, just in time to watch you being hit by something. In hindsight we believe it must have been some kind of force shield. It sent you to your knees immediately, and then there was the blood. All over your face. It looked horrible. You were unconscious before you finally hit the ground. I grabbed you and dragged you back towards the 'gate, yelling at the others not to proceed. When I looked closer, I noticed you had a pulse but weren't breathing. I tried to make you breathe... I really tried..."

Her voice trailed off, threatening to give in to the tears she was holding back.

"I'm sure you did the best you could, Colonel", he assured her, his voice low but warm.

She swallowed hard. "All we could do was get you back to the SGC asap, right to the hands of Dr. Fraser. She had you hooked to her machines and got you finally back."

There was silence. Then Jack cleared his throat. "What was that force shield about anyway? Right behind the 'gate?"

Maria explained what they had come up with after the smoke had cleared. "We think it might be an equivalent to our iris. Some device to keep visitors away from that planet."

Jack considered for a moment, than argued: "But why at this minimal distance? Why not shut their 'gate tightly like we do, so no one can step through in the first place?"

"We assume that it was meant to work exactly like it did on us. Do damage to the first being to walk through in order to warn everybody else off. Seems they're not too keen on meeting new species. We got the message. We logged the coordinates off the list the same day."


End file.
